#it would have been unbearable

[monsterhospital]

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[dragonagedidiot]

Rook and Harding: *trading puns back and forth for the past 4 hours*

Varric: The Maker tests me every single day

[badboysteve]

I just finished re-watching season 3 with someone who hasn't seen the show before and anyone who thinks Steve was silly for thinking Robin was into him/ should have somehow known she was gay before confessing to her, really needs to rewatch their heart-to-heart scene in the Russian bunker. Robin tells Steve outright that she was obsessed with him (her, not "all girls") and was watching him close enough to still remembers his exact breakfast down to what kind of bagel it was!! Everything she says, down to the insults, sounds like she's bitter about an unrequited crush. Which she is! Just not on him.

My friend knew going in that she was gay and still thought this was a love confession!

So when Steve confesses in the bathroom, it's not baseless or comes out of nowhere: He's acting based on her words, their budding friendship pre-season, and the intimancy they built under the mall.

He has every reason to think he'd have a serious shot at having his feelings returned, which makes how well he reacts to Robin recontextualizing things for him even better imo.

[shouldprobablybereading]

That Gavilar reveal happened in probably the most boring way possible

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Finding it endlessly hilarious that while we got an absolutely stunning glow-up for Pavitr, we simultaneously got the simplification of E50101-Green Goblin

Like. sure. the armour is cool. orange instead of purple. wonderful embossed details. weirdly angular iconic face. he SCREAMS classic Green Goblin and that's perfectly okay

But COME ON they downgraded him from a literal demon!!!!!! He was literally a 1:1 trans-adaption of E1610-Green Goblin!!!!!! They turned a big hulking BEAST who could throw fire and stuff into a Skinny Old Guy

Nalin Oberoi i will avenge you

[narwhalandchill]

oh my fucking god i feel. SO stupid rn at How i didnt make the (super sane very normal just absolutely. Yes. Surely) connection earlier but uhh

so anyway im now like 89% certain that whatever the "traces" of the narwhal that remain on ajax and facilitate their (ever-growing) innate connection are like. an actually fundamental aspect of it (them?) more or less.

why? because if you consider its pov just for a moment. the narwhal was literally about to depart teyvat for good. it had nearly finished consuming the primordial sea and preparing to breach surface to finish the job by eating the french for the leftovers their human bodies were made from. its an interstellar voyager it does not linger on planets it devours. it goes glug glug and it leaves.

and like if it wasnt for traveler intervening its confirmed through narzissenkreuz and renes world formula that teyvat wouldve just been destroyed. no one could have stopped the narwhal not neuvillette not focalors not anyone.

so what was the one other thing it did right before going for that french brunch? calling for ajax. getting them reunited in the primordial sea. like all the possible implications aside bc theres many different ways to speculate on the exact reasons why and the nature of that link. the point remains.

it wasnt leaving teyvat without finding him.

like the narwhal is about to fucking Dip from this cringe planet and whatever part of it that ajax carries within himself his narwhal Absolutely wanted to be reunited with. what the fuck am i supposed to read from that. hoyo???????!??! answers?!?!?!

and its not only the calling from the narwhal side itself either bc this is ALL coinciding with the growth of a 'restless power' within ajax and his vision malfunctioning (the things celestia is literally confirmed to harvest energy thru to repair its damaged authority) and his connection with the narwhal reaching an actual conscious level (arguably subconscious n emotional too bc i find it Curious his mood is poor right as the narwhal is repeatedly described as positively malding to the point its boss fight mechanic is literally a rage meter). ajax' power is growing. his destiny is starting to shift and something is drawing him to fontaine... right as the narwhal is getting close to finished with the primordial sea. funny how it overlaps eh. how it aligns 🤨🤨 why are they orbiting each other like this (they should kiss)

(& not to even Mention how ajax just Happened to get that absolutely exponential and borderline unbelievable feat of power spike in extending his foul legacy endurance as massively as he did. while. within the primordial sea. with his narwhal. who had at that point all but incorporated the power of that sea into itself. i s2g if childe was getting passive home turf co-op bonus exp with a 4x multiplier automatically the whole 40+ days 💀💀)

[the-mpreg-guy]

if they had let sam be a witch dean could have called him “sam witch.” :( never forget what they took from us

[qprpbj]

oh thank god ppl aren’t crucifying me for saying i like it better that darry dropped out of school over just not going at all i feel so vindicated. i think it makes sm more sense for his character and—-

[hythlodaes]

i don’t know how much understanding emile would have for the endless, tbh. everything about it feels so cruel to him—taking away people’s memories to spare them pain, taking living people to keep the dead propped up and half-alive in a daydream.

so much about his loss has shaped him into who he is, and though he’d love to see his father again, he would never give up the memory of him. he lives on in emile, who fights to make him proud and honor him in all that he does….

[hawkeyeslaughter]

me looking in the mirror at my red rimmed sleepy eyes : omg mash reference <3

[stinkrascal]

new dragon age game is gonna make me so unreasonably annoying about that bald man. im so sorry in advanced for the person i will become

[figgolu]

idk how to say it without sounding like a whiny bitch but i hope tlt never gets an adaptation. animation or live action series. i can't take the dumbest takes ever on one of my favorite things and some of my favorite characters invading their tags and my screen because the algorithm thinks i wanna see some random mf write a long ass post or thread about why they think harrowhark is a monster who hates gideon and everyone who likes her is a potential abuser. there are enough stupid pieces of thought on this series already.

[mzcain27]

God the R+L=J theories have all been so valid since the very first book tbh

[chaotic-average-child]

getting back on my drawing slowly but surely ^^ here's an aleena

[hiddenramen]

I'm really enjoying your bnha opinions, bc I feel like everyone I know who watched it only had good things to say, but I was so bored that I gave up around the school festival arc I think. I felt like it was going nowhere and not giving me enough of substance to justify all the time I put into it. Thematically weak story, and Midoriya is such a boring protagonist 😭 glad I'm not the only person who thought it was mid (sorry if I'm incorrectly overstating your opinion)

no that's basically where i am. like i ended up skipping through the back half of s4 until the filler arc was over just because i could not handle how boring it was. i normally don't skip filler on a first watch but jesus fuck i could not deal with another nothing ass storyline when the show has barely given me anything to hold onto at this point.

there are so many things that we could be doing. we could be fleshing out the world or the hero system further. we could've spent more time with bakugou and todoroki at their remedial course (todoroki has dad drama we could be picking at, bakugou's still got leftover drama from kamino, camie got fucking knocked out by toga and we barely acknowledged it, all might and endeavor's conversation could've been more fleshed out, literally a million things!). we could talk more about the quirk singularity and what that means. tokoyami had his work study with hawks and i still know less than nothing about how that went. there are about 4000 hanging plot threads involving the league and the mole inside the school and what AFO is planning and gigantomachia and mirio and aizawa and eri and the fallout from nighteye's death.

so yeah no let's acknowledge absolutely none of that and let's just do a random ass school festival arc that doesn't matter even remotely and doesn't do a single thing to substantially progress the plot or any of characters in a way that means anything. for some reason. after four goddamn seasons of effectively nothing happening.